2015-01-23 -35 174

From Geohashing
Fri 23 Jan 2015 in -35,174:
-35.7415517, 174.4216344
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Location

Farmland off Owhiwa Rd, Parua Bay, Northland

Participants

Plans

We stayed at the Kauri Villas B&B on Owhiwa Rd for the previous two nights while celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary. On the day of our departure we were planning to visit Abbey Caves by driving up Owhiwa Rd, and over Mt Tiger. On checking the geohash in the morning, I was astounded to see that it was about 50m off the road that we would be driving along, in a small piece of bush. Decided to try and visit it if possible.

Expedition

Arrived near to the location, and spied a nearby farmhouse. Parked on the road outside and wandered in the drive. Found the landowner, Alan Cooke, wondering why his donkeys were so agitated - they make great guard dogs apparently. Explained geohashing to him, and he readily agreed that it was fine for us to enter his land to get to the location. He stated that it was possible it was just on the next door neighbour's land but he was sure that she would have no problem with it either.

We walked down the road, and crossed a fence into a field, which we crossed in single file towards the location. Once under the trees the phone had real problems with locating satellites, sending us this way and that, and never settling down. We came across two poisoned possums, which are noxious pests in New Zealand. By using the phone out of the tree cover on either side of the bush, and by transferring the co-ordinates to the GPS, we got to the vicinity of the Geohash. Neither the phone nor GPS settled exactly on the co-ordinates, but after shuffling around for about 10 minutes we decided that at least one of us at some point must have been at the location, so took a set of photographs before departing.

Photos